When you dream of an elephant, does an
elephant appear to your mind? Indeed it appears very clearly. Is there an
elephant there? No. This appearance of an elephant in your dream is a union of
appearance and emptiness. It appears, yet it does not exist--yet it appears.
It is the same with all external phenomena. If we understand the example of
the appearance of something in a dream, it is easier to understand how the
mind appears yet does not exist, and does not exist yet
appears.

--Kenchen Thrangu Rinpoche in Essentials of
Mahamudra

Clouds

If I go
into the mountainsthere are nobody there

There is a possibilty of
meeting one or twoon a crowdy day

But what do I know,there
are so many mountains hereit would not be different if everybody
went.

as flowing waters disappear into the
mistwe lose all track of their passageevery heart is its own
Buddhaease off; become immortal

wake up: the world's a mote of
dustbehold heaven's round mirrorturn loose: slip past shape and
shadowsit side by side with nothing-save Tao

Dogen's Cosmology of Space and the Practice of
Self-Fulfillment -Taigen Dan Leighton

excerpt 1:

Conventionally,
"flowers in space" are an image of delusion, illusion, and non-reality. But
Dogen is affirming that all the buddhas' teachings are just "flowers in space."
The supposedly illusory space flowers are exactly where buddhas teach, "The
vehicle upon which the buddhas ride." And even the Buddhist scriptures are
flowers in space. This paradox is in full accord with the Mahayana principle,
enunciated in the Lotus Sutra, of buddhas appearing precisely for the sake of
awakening beings from the delusions and afflictions of the mundane world. Dogen
says further, "By practicing this flower of space, the buddha-tathagatas receive
the robes, the seat for teaching, and the master's room, and they attain the
truth and get the effect. Picking up a flower and winking an eye are all the
Universe." This is a reference to the legend of Shakyamuni holding up the flower
and Mahakashyapa, considered the First Ancestor of Zen in India, smiling. Dogen
says, "Picking up a flower and winking an eye are all the Universe, which is
realized by clouded eyes and flowers in space. The true Dharma eye treasury
[that is "Shobogenzo"] and the fine mind of nirvana, which have been
authentically transmitted to the present without interruption, are called
clouded eyes and flowers in space."

Dogen has turned a
conventional image for delusion totally upside down. "Bodhi, nirvana, the
Dharma-body, selfhood, and so on, are two or three petals of five petals opened
by a flower in space." And then he quotes this line mentioned above, "Shakyamuni
Buddha says, 'It is like a person who has clouded eyes seeing flowers in space;
if the sickness of clouded eyes is cured, flowers vanish in space."

Dogen also says:

"No scholars have clearly understood this statement. Because they do not
know space, they do not know flowers in space. Because they do not know flowers
in space, they do not know a person who has clouded eyes, do not see a person
who has clouded eyes, do not meet a person who has clouded eyes, and do not
become a person who has clouded eyes. Through meeting a person who has clouded
eyes, we should know flowers in space and should see flowers in space. When we
have seen flowers in space, we can also see flowers vanish in space."[15]

Dogen is not just
talking about space, but the "flowering of space," and of the Dharma. Zazen and
the whole Buddhist project is just a "flower in space" for Dogen. This is
typical of Dogen's sense of humor, or at least he is playing with our usual
understandings, and even the usual understandings of Buddhist scholars and
teachers. It is exactly amid the space flowers that buddhas awaken and produce
more space flowers. Dogen is also reaffirming, in a very deep way, the issue of
nonduality.

Usually nonduality
is considered as opposed to duality. Dogen often refers to nonduality, and it is
usually thought that this is about transcending duality and discriminating mind,
seeing through the dualities of form and emptiness, this and that, good and bad,
right and wrong, all of the conventional dualistic illusions. But in his
discussion of the flowers of space, Dogen is clearly talking about the
nonduality of duality and nonduality. Dogen's nonduality is not about
transcending the duality of form and emptiness. This deeper nonduality is not
the opposite of duality, but the synthesis of duality and nonduality, with both
included, and both seen as ultimately not separate, but as integrated. In the
"flowers in space" of the buddhas' teaching, "space" is not empty space, "space"
is our activity and life, the dialectical synthesis of form and emptiness.

Dogen also adds in
Shobogenzo Kuge, "People who understand that flowers in space are not real but
other flowers are real are people who have not seen or heard the Buddha's
teaching." He is saying yes to everything, and cutting through duality and
nonduality, right in our everyday life. "The everyday speech of a monk is the
whole universe in ten directions" is a kind of a nonduality that goes beyond our
conventional idea of nonduality. He is describing the ontological and
cosmological awakening of the natural world, and the impact of space
itself.

Another influence is the
native Japanese poetic tradition, as Steven Heine elaborates in The Zen
Poetry of Dogen.[17] Dogen's rhetoric, his poetic style, and philosophical approach
come out of both the koan material, but also from the great literary tradition
in Japan, in which he was very well versed. Yet another influence is the whole
Mahayana tradition of the bodhisattva, apparent in his many quotes from various
sutras. The image of "Flowers in Space" recalls the Flower Ornament Sutra, the
Avatamsaka, which also talks about space and buddha-fields as full of flowers,
as well as jewels, birds, and the adorned land itself all preaching the Dharma.
The Mahayana sutras provide a tradition for this way of speaking about space,
but as usual, Dogen turns it a little bit. [..]

................

Dogen says, "When one
displays the Buddha mudra with one's whole body and mind, sitting upright in
this samadhi even for a short time, everything in the entire dharma world
becomes buddha mudra, and all space in the universe completely becomes
enlightenment." To say that all space itself becomes enlightenment is a
startling and radical statement from our usual view of space, or of
enlightenment. Dogen continues:

"There is a path through which the
anuttara samyak sambodhi, complete perfect enlightenment, of all things
returns to the person in zazen, and whereby that person and the enlightenment of
all things intimately and imperceptibly assist each other. Therefore this zazen
person without fail drops off body and mind, cuts away previous tainted views
and thoughts, awakens genuine buddha-dharma, universally helps the buddha work
in each place, as numerous as atoms, where buddhas teach and practice, and
widely influences practitioners who are going beyond buddha, vigorously exalting
the dharma that goes beyond buddha. At this time, because earth, grasses and
trees, fences and walls, tiles and pebbles, all things in the dharma realm in
the universe in ten directions [the whole of space and all the things that are
space: grasses, trees, fences and so forth] carry out buddha-work, therefore
everyone receives the benefit of wind and water movement caused by this
functioning, and all are imperceptibly helped by the wondrous and
incomprehensible influence of buddha to actualize the enlightenment at hand."[22]

Because of this mutual
resonance, Dogen is saying that not only teachers help the practitioner, but
that there is an "imperceptible" guidance and assistance between space itself
and the person sitting. Zazen influences not only the people around the
practitioner, but also, "grasses and trees, fences and walls, tiles and
pebbles." But because the elements of space then also carry out "buddha work,"
they in turn inform and assist the practice of the person engaged in zazen. This
is the import of this previous passage, which is part of the "self-fulfillment
samadhi" jijiyu zanmai section of Bendowa that is chanted daily in
Japanese Soto Zen training temples.

The etymology of the
"self-fulfillment samadhi" is significant in Dogen's teaching about space itself
becoming enlightenment. The etymology of jijiyu, or self-fulfillment, is
literally, "the self accepting its function." When each person takes their place
or dharma position, receiving their particular unique function or role in the
world, then that active acceptance becomes the fulfillment of the deeper self
that is not separate from the things of the world. There is an intimate
relationship between self and the world, and that is involved in what might be
called "faith," in trusting both oneself and the world. But this does not mean
mere passive and unquestioning acceptance of everything. The practitioner's own
active response and participation in the world, based on precepts and on
principles of acting to benefit and awaken all beings, is part of the dynamic
space that Dogen is expounding.

There is a word in the
previous passage that I had not heard before studying in Japan, myoshi,
or another version is myoka, meaning "mysterious guidance," or
"incomprehensible assistance." This refers to the possibility of practitioners
receiving benefit from the bodhisattva energy and buddha energy of the world.
But also it works reciprocally; when we sit zazen, we affect the nature of the
space. After you have sat a period in the meditation hall and arise, you might
perhaps feel a difference in the space. This is hardly objective or scientific
in the usual sense, but if you travel to Bodhgaya in India, or certain old
temples in Japan, places where people have practiced for a very long time, and
then walk into that space, you might feel some of the impact of the centuries of
practice.

This idea of myoshi
implies trusting the world to give what is needed, no matter how painful it is.
It is also taking refuge, returning to the world, returning to one's place in
the world. Myoshi is the basis for the whole practice of lay people,
going to the temples and making offerings, chanting, and bowing to buddha and
bodhisattva statues. Japanese college students call on Manjushri, the
bodhisattva of wisdom, for help on their tests. But the other side of
myoshi is that there is a responsibility; it is not just one-way. It is
our practice that activates the response from the phenomenal world. So we have a
responsibility to the world and to space, and with our responsive and aware
practice, assistance can arrive from the awakened space.

Caring for Space

This view of space has
some implications that are significant in terms of Dogen's contemporary
relevance. This aspect is not all there is to Dogen's writing; there is also the
psychological dimension implied in his teaching of "studying the self."[23] But we could call this teaching about space the environmental
aspect of Dogen. Dogen is saying that the environment is alive, just like the
Native American peoples say that all our relations in the four directions are
alive. The trees and grasses, and for Dogen even the lights, the rug, and the
chairs, have some spiritual agency.

For a modern reading and
current contemporary recreation of Dogen, one might see how this relates to
Dogen's attention to taking care of the monastery or practice place, and taking
care generally of the phenomenal world (which some people have considered
"fussiness" on Dogen's part). According to Dogen, the space that one practices
in is alive, and supportive, in this level of dharma practice. Taking care of
the phenomenal world is the natural expression of the practice of zazen. Gary
Snyder says that Zen comes down to meditation and sweeping the temple, and it is
up to each person to decide where the boundaries of the temple are. There are
particular practice places, and then there is the whole universe in the ten
directions, and we each work within the limits of the field of space that we are
in.

This view of space is also
relevant to faith. The sense of faith for Dogen is that it is not belief in some
thing, in what Dogen says, or in a buddha image, but faith as a kind of active
practice relationship with space. This faith is just taking the next step,
meeting each thing. That is because, from this perspective, the dharma world of
space is alive. One does receive support when acting from that space of faith.

Taigen Dan Leighton
has been teaching at the Institute of Buddhist Studies since 1994. He is author
of Faces of Compassion: Classic Bodhisattva Archetypes and Their Modern
Expression, and is editor and co-translator of a number of Zen texts,
including Dogen's Extensive Record: A Translation of the Eihei Koroku;
Cultivating the Empty Field: The Silent Illumination of Zen Master Hongzhi; and
Dogen's Pure Standards for the Zen Community; A Translation of the Eihei
Shingi.

Thanks to Ed (stillpointed) for posting the link
where entire article may be read.